Cross-border digital services are those provided by a provider not domiciled in the country through the Internet or any other digital platform and that is consumed in the national territory, such as Netflix, Airbnb, and Amazon, among others, and an additional 13% will be applied to them for the Value Added Tax from October 1st.
The National Bank informs all card customers that the charge complies with the regulatory framework dictated by the Law for the Strengthening of Public Finance approved in 2018 and like all card issuers, these users must apply the tax.
The General Directorate of Taxation published decree DGT-R-13-2020 on June 11th of the current year, in which it is established that: “Issuers of credit or debit cards are obliged to act as collection agents of this tax, they must apply the Value Added Tax on cross-border digital services and intangible assets, as appropriate in each case, seeking to comply with their tax obligations without prejudice to their operations”.
The collection of the tax by the debit or credit card issuers will be applied to the transactions carried out by the cardholder with the digital service providers identified in the list communicated by the General Directorate of Taxation. This list will be available on the page www.hacienda.go.cr and will be updated at least every six months, to include new providers or exclude those who have voluntarily registered as taxpayers.
List of cross-border services that will pay VAT:
